hey all, i searched around in a little bit, couldn't find exactly what i wanted to know. my dad's truck is a 1982 D150 Royal with the 225/4-speed manual. it says "Electronic Spark Control System" on the air cleaner lid...does this mean it has Lean Burn on it? i would like to remove it if it does. i've found a few articles on it and from what they said Lean Burn was an option on the '82 slant six. the truck has a few hiccups every now and then and doesn't like revving at all...i was told removing the Lean Burn will help remedy this...any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks in advance!

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1982 Dodge Ram D150 lwb
225 slant 6, 4-speed manual...all stock

Electronic Spark Control is simply the newer name for the Lean Burn System. There has been much discussion on the board about converting to a standard distributor and an HEI module. Please see here: http://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28732

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Joshua

Yes it is a 'Leanburn' system.I don't know about it being an option other then EPA requirements in the state it was headed for,if you have no exhaust cops,regulations where you're at it sure should come off.Search the articles section it should have all the info you'll need plus use the search function for lots of posts about this subject.Good luck.
Josh is fast on the 'Submit' button

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83 B-150 slant 6,4 speed. 79 B-300 360 pathfinder 4x4. 74 W-300 318 4x4 git-r-done 80 B-100 sl6,4speed

Yup that little box is the brain for the Lean Burn system.

Lean Burn was first installed on 1976 400 ci Cordoba’s to improve fuel mileage, and drivability, two attributes cars of the day had been lacking since 1973 no thanks to Nixon’s newly formed EPA.

What Lean Burn dose if working properly is monitor: coolant temperature; throttle position and frequency of motion; ambient temperature; rpm; and than adjusts air fuel mixture from 13:1 to 19:1; timing â€￾xâ€￾ times a second for optimal fuel economy when cruising at light throttle or dials back to rich mixture for power. Due to slow analog computer performance, and carburetor’s inability to respond quickly with precise air fuel mixtures the system often did not respond well. Fuel injection of the early eighties made Lean Burn obsolete.


Check [url=http://www.slantsix.org/articles/leanburn-article/leanburn-article.htm]here[/url] for conversion details.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

thanks a lot guys...i was scared it was the Lean Burn system. i'm new to Dodges but not new to cars...i'm really liking looking around the site and learning all i can about 'em...

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1982 Dodge Ram D150 lwb
225 slant 6, 4-speed manual...all stock

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Super Six Conversion Stromberg

The ported vacuum switch is part of the emissions control system. That's why your car didn't have it. It isn't needed and it doesn't help economy or performance.

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Joshua

Thanks Joshua

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Super Six Conversion Stromberg

Wellllll…kinda. The situation is complicated. It's definitely true that most US '70s cars ran poorly and guzzled gas compared to their pre-'70s counterparts. Part of the poor mileage was due to the continuing increase in vehicle bulk and weight; compare a '66 Chev Caprice to a '76 for just one of a whole lot of examples—though to be fair, part of the increase in bulk and weight was due to new Federal requirements for sturdier bumpers, more crash protection for the vehicle occupants and the fuel system, etc. But the major cause of reduced fuel economy and performance was the grudging, retributive, cheap-and-nasty way the US auto industry chose to comply with new and tightening emissions regulations of the day. The US auto industry was futzing around strangling their engines with cheap and nasty "hang on and pray we pass the Federal emissions type approval tests" tactics; the cars started hard, idled rough, stalled, hesitated, pinged, and got terrible mileage. In context of a lot of SAE papers the US automakers wrote at the time bïtching and moaning about what a stupid, useless, needless idea exhaust cleanup was, it looks to me like an effort to spur public backlash against the very idea of regulating auto emissions. Meanwhile, the Europeans and Japanese, instead of bellyaching about the regs, set about building cars that ran well and met the emission requirements. Some of these cars were very costly; others were not.

The same dumb game played out on the safety front, again and again. 3-point front outboard belts were mandatory equipment in the USA as of 1/1/68. They did not have to be unitized; most US-built cars had separate shoulder harnesses, often stored in clips above the doors, which either fastened to a separate buckle—for a ridiculous total of five tongues and buckles littering the front seat—or which clipped onto the tongue of the lap belt. Really halfassed designs, all of those. They were a hassle to use, were very uncomfortable, and were poorly positioned to do anything but meet the most basic safety performance requirements contained in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 208 and 209.

It is my firm opinion that these initial belt designs were deliberately made cheap and nasty in an effort to stir up a backlash amongst the motoring public. European automakers like Volvo, Saab, and Mercedes had perfectly good, comfortable, easily-used unitised 3-point retracting belts (the kind all cars have now) right from the start or shortly thereafter, and many of the European-built examples of American car designs (such as the Swiss-built Valiants) had much better belts than the domestically-built ones.

So was Lean Burn on the good side or the bad side of this equation...?

Answer is "Yes"!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I just bought an 84 D100 for parts but after driving it home I kinda like it. It has the Lean Burn system on it but as I was doing 65 or so on the freeway, it kept feeling like it was randomly losing power and then it would run rough for a minute before smoothing out and gaining the power back. Is this a Lean Burn problem?

Also if I keep the truck I have to get it smogged. My plan would be to smog it with lean burn and then do the HEI conversion. That way when I go back it's just kind of plug n play with everything being in my engine bay and me just swapping wires and carb/distributor. Would this cause it to fail smog with the HEI/ballast etc being in the engine bay? I'm not sure how "visual" the visual inspections are. Plus I don't really want to call a smog place and ask them about removing most of the emissions after I get it checked.

I think it is all up to the skill of the technician. When i had to have my daily driver smogged, all they really checked for were catalytic converters, EGR, stock air cleaner, and PCV. Mine passed the sniffer by a million miles, even though the converters were hollow and the EGR was flipped. All of the other hoses had BBs in them so while technically there, they were plugged off. The improved performance of my stealth HEI installation and the NOS Holley 1920 carb made it much cleaner, emissions-wise, than what it was when the Lean Bum was in place. Gas mileage shot up too.

Depending how stealthy you are, you can get away with it. But if you could get your Lean Bum tweaked to work like it was designed, that might be the way to go. Start with a basic tune up, check for corrosion on all the connections, and vacuum leaks (major cause of Lean bum demise).

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

I highly doubt anyone can get a lean burn system running right at this late date.

That being said, if you are handy and good with a wiring diagram you could easily tae the lean burn computer, remove its guts, and replace them with an HEI unit and use the factory wiring and plugs to run HEI instead of lean burn. A tech would have to look long and hard at your engine to see anything amiss. The biggest giveaway would be the vacuum cannister on the distributor, but the tech would have to pretty savvy to spot that.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Very sneaky...I like the way you guys think. I'm gonna have to give it a big look over today after work. I only have a few days before I have to report it to DMV and decide if its going to be a parts truck or a runner. I like the idea of hiding the HEI in the lean burn computer. If a smog tech catches that you just kinda have to tip your cap